After speculations, controversies, anticipations and even more speculations, it is finally revealed that billionaire Elon Musk is becoming the new owner of Twitter.
It all began when Musk bought a huge stake in Twitter, by acquiring 9.2% ownership of the social media. With it, Musk became Twitter's largest single shareholder.
As the richest person on Earth, with a net worth shy of $300 billion, Musk is able to buy almost any company in the world, and Twitter is included.
At first, Twitter wanted to prevent Musk from taking over Twitter, by limiting his stock, and also offering him a seat at the company's board of directors.
Existing members tried to keep Musk from interfering too far.
Musk didn't mind. He was quite happy. Until he had a change of plans.
Soon after he acquired a small portion of Twitter, people began to speculate how far the billionaire would go to pursuit in buying his most favorite social media network. And for sure, despite declining having a seat at Twitter's board of directors, it didn't take too long before he made it obvious that he wanted the whole thing.
Musk later said that he offered to take Twitter Inc. private in a deal valued at $44 billion
It was on April 14, when Musk offered to buy the remaining percentage of the company for $54.20 per share in a "best and final" offer. He did this to make the company private.
His offer is a huge 38% premium on the price he previously paid for his initial investment.
"I believe in [Twitter’s] potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy," he wrote in a letter to the chair of Twitter’s board. "I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form."
Musk lambasted the company management and saying he’s the person who can unlock the "extraordinary potential" of the communication platform.
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," said Musk.
This way, Musk is essentially ending all the speculations that were swirling in the media and the internet.
Yesss!!! pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
After a long meting that took place over the weekend, Twitter' board who agreed with Musk in buying the whole company, tried to recommend the deal with shareholders.
According to a press release, Twitter independent board chair Bret Taylor described the deal as “the best path forward” for the company’s shareholders.
And when they all agreed, Twitter is essentially owned by Musk.
On the same day that he publicly said that he is bidding to take over the entirety of Twitter, Musk appeared at a TED talk in Vancouver, saying that his vision is not about the money.
For sure, Twitter despite being significantly smaller than Meta, is still able to generate huge amount of money.
But for Musk, his intention is way beyond that.
"This is not a way to sort of make money," he claimed.
"My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important."
By taking the company private, Musk would be able to make the changes he wants far more quickly, without answering to public markets.
"I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans," Musk wrote in Monday’s press release.
Buying and selling companies is a common thing. And on the internet, tech companies can trade hands just as easy.
The thing is, it's kind of unusual for one single person to consider a takeover of a massive business.
But again, Musk has shown the world that he is out of the ordinary.
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
Sooner than later, Twitter's user base was at a massive confusion.
Knowing that Musk is one of the most influential people on Twitter, some users were unsure where Twitter would go, and how far Musk would control the platform, without having to even become its CEO.
As a result of this, Twitter was flooded with user reports of high-profile accounts’ losing thousands of followers.
This happened in mere hours after the news broke.
Twitter said that the "fluctuations in follower counts" came from "organic" account closures.
Twitter however, didn't provide any details about the accounts that were shuttered or activated in the hours after the ownership announcement Monday. It only said that it was looking into the "recent fluctuations in follower counts."
"While we continue to take action on accounts that violate our spam policy which can affect follower counts, these fluctuations appear to largely be a result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation," Twitter said in a statement.
Not only some Twitter users who went uneasy, as some of Twitter's employees were panicking.
They began to worry over the future of the social media firm's ability to moderate content.
This was exceptionally true, because Musk has described himself as a "free speech absolutist."
Sooner than later in the U.S., some political conservatives began flooding the social media with calls for the return of Donald Trump. The former U.S. president was banned from Twitter after the Capitol riot in January 6th, 2021.
Read: Former U.S. President Donald Trump Won't Return To Twitter, And People Don't Believe Him